a game of huts, spears and stubborn little islands
If a computer player does something odd, save the position and send me the file:
How to play
Every territory of two or more hexes has a hut holding its money. Each turn it earns 1 per hex without a tree.
Men cost wages every turn: peasant 2, spearman 6, knight 18, baron 54. A territory that cannot pay loses every man in it.
You can only buy peasants (10) and castles (15). Drop a man on another man to combine them - their strengths add up. A new man can go on a tree, on one of your men, or straight onto an enemy hex he is strong enough to take; press recruit again to promote the man you just put down.
Drag a man anywhere in his own territory as often as you like, but he gets one action: attack an adjacent enemy hex, or chop one tree.
You take a hex only if your strength is greater than its defence. Men, huts and castles defend their own hex and every hex around it - defence is the strongest defender, never the sum. Hut 1, castle 2, man 1-4.
A red flag on a hut means it has 10 or more in the bank - enough for a peasant. The minimap flashes a red dot for every one of those and for every man who still has his action.
Trees pay nothing, and they spread every turn: a pine grows on any hex touching two pines, a palm on any coastal hex touching a palm, and a fallen man's grave becomes a tree. Left alone the island goes to wood - keep men chopping or watch your income die.
Very hard plays exactly as Hard does, but collects an extra coin each turn for every territory it holds. Brutal earns what the land pays, same as you - it is simply a better player: it works out several whole turns each go, plays each one out to see how everybody answers it, and keeps whichever leaves it best placed.
Take the whole island to win. Once you hold 75% of it your opponents will offer to concede - you can always turn them down and finish the job.